Minneriya National Park

පොලොන්නරුව දිස්ත්‍රික්කයේ පිහිටා ඇති ඉතා අලංකාර වනෝද්‍යානයක් ලෙස මින්නේරිය වනෝද්‍යානය හඳුන්වා දිය හැක දේශීය මෙන්ම විදේශීය සංචාරකයන්ගේ නෙත ගැටෙන අලංකාර වනෝද්‍යානයක් ලෙස මෙය සැලකිය හැක පැමිණෙන සංචාරකයින් හට වන අලි බහුලව දැක ගත හැක ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ සංචාරය කරන සංචාරකයින් හට අලි බහුල නැරඹිය හැකියි හැකි ප්‍රධාන වනෝද්‍යානයක් ලෙස මින්නේරිය සැලකේ.

Visited 2 yrs ago and it was amazing! I saw around 500 (!) elephants and few more animals. Honestly.see elephants living so freely in such a nice nature is blessing:) absolutely worth it!

If you want to visit the largest herd of wild elephants in Sri Lanka, Minneriya is a perfect national park.

With a dry zone ecosystem, this national park is also ideal for bird watching during the dry season.

The experience was great. There was a somewhat of a delay in issuing the tickets for the park. Otherwise it is worth the money spent.

Amazing experience. Short but worth the travel. Probably the largest protected elephant herd in Sri Lanka

Minneriya National Park is located 182 km away from Colombo in the North Central Plains of Sri Lanka. The major city closest to Minneriya National Park is Polonnaruwa.
It is the largest known meeting place of Asian Elephants in the world. During this period herds up to 300 elephants are seen at the 8,890 hectare park within a few square kilometers of the Minneriya Reservoir. In August and September each year during the dry season, wild elephants from the surrounding wilderness in search of food and water, makes their way to the shores of the Minneriya Reservoir adjoining the Minneriya National Park. Huge herd of elephants, sometimes numbering up to 300, converge together within a few square kilometers of the lake.

Mammals at Minneriya National Park

Among the 24 species of mammals resident in the park are Elephants, Leopards, Sloth Bear, Spotted Deer, Sambar Deer, Wild Buffalo, Wild Pig, Grey Langers, Purple-faced Leaf Monkey, three species of Mongoose, Porcupine and Indian Pangolin.

Birds at Minneriya National Park

Minneriya National Park has recorded over 170 species of birds. From Migrating waders like Woodsand Piper, Common Sandpiper & Kentish Plovers to forest birds like Malabar-pied Hornbills, Rufus Woodpecker the globally endangered Lesser Adjutant and the endemics Sri Lanka Grey Horn-bill, Sri Lanka Green Pigeon, Brown-capped Babbler and Sri Lanka Jungle Fowl are some of the highlights.

The park is located a few kilometres from Habarana and requires you to purchase a ticket before entering. I however reccommend that if you are staying in a hotel to book the safari through the hotel as it is faster than just going to the park and booking directly. You also sometimes get a discount because of the partnership the hotel has with the park.

Moreover the park is actually bursting with activity with elephants, wild buffoloes and peacocks. I was quite amazed to see herds of elephants in plenty of locations. Since it was late we couldn't travel much but if you go early the safari lasts about 3 hours.

Great place to visit for safari with friends or family.
Ideal time to visit after 3: 00pm. That’s the time all the animal come out. Mainly More number of elephants can be seen here together.
Entrance fees for foreigners are adult $ 15 and Child $ 8 plus service charges and VAT.
Better to have good safari person who is familiar with park to ensure the full entertainment during the safari.

Highly recommended to visit.

If you want to see 200 elephants in the wild, then this is the place to go. You can even go during the day and there is a good chance they'll be near the lake. In August you can get up to 500 elephants in one place, but there can be too many Safari jeeps. The best time to go is during July. You can also catch other wildlife like foxes, deer and plenty of birds.

Having gone to Safari in South Africa and Kenya I was a little unimpressed with the national park and the tours themselves. I didn't feel like I was being taken on Safari of that I was in a wild life preserve.

There were just so many cars and people it felt like one of those conventional large safari parks they have by highways in the US or other countries. I enjoyed seeing so many elephants and the animals are not being compromised, but it just felt like a bit of a tourist trap to me. I wouldn't choose to do this again and I'd try to visit another national park in Sri Lanka. But then again, they might end up being the same.

If you are looking for elephants you will most definitely find them here.

Minneriya national park is a beautiful park that filled with lot of wild animals like elephants birds crocodile and other so maney other animals it is very beautiful and it is very sensitive habitat so the wild life department do not allowe to take any musical instrument to inside the national park and they do not allowe take alchole also you must have to take a jeep from entrance of the national park or a jeep safari point and its a must that to do not disturb animals and their activitys and do not go to much near to the animals and pleas ask from jeep driver or guide before go some where or getting down from the jeep and its a very beautiful ride also pepole can have so much fun but do not shout near the animals because some time it may be dangerous and minneriya national park is geographycly olso importent plase so please enjoy the ride but dont disturb the wild life have a safe ride
$. R

Nice safari experience. Used to be a good park to see wild elephants. However unfortunately we only could see 3 elephants during our visit. We chose to visit in early morning and some say the evening is the best to see elephants. The views around the lake in the middle of the park are amazing. They stop here for a little while and you can take some awesome pictures here.

One of the best place to watch elephants. We saw about 27 elephants during our 3 hour safari. The national park was well preserved. The safari trail is a bit bumpy, so I highly recommend anyone could not handle bumpier road refrain from going. Take as many water bottles as you can. It’s ideal to avoid rainy season as most of the trail will be submerged.

One of best national park in sri lanka and this is considered as an A grade national park.it is a kingdom of elephants.in the season it is not difficult to see 200-300 elephants in a same location (lake area). In april, may, july, August and September are ideal months to see elephants, not only elephants there are lot of animals living in here but it is not easy to see other animals.

Nice place to see the elephants in their original habitat off course disturbed by the tourists. The charges for tourist Jeep are extremely high Sri Lankan Rupees 18000 for only 2 hours of drive with 5-6 persons.

National park in Sri Lanka where we can see elephants other jungle animals
There are lots of safari jeeps to travel and there is a bungalow inside this park

An interesting place - probably too many dodgy jeep drivers but plenty of wild animals including masses of elephants and buffalo.

You can enjoy the amazing view and feel the calmness of the environment here. But the uncontrolled Safari riders ruins the calmness and wildlife. Sometimes hundreds of jeeps enters to the park and wondering everywhere. Really that destroys the wildlife and we have no right to do that. So please control this madness.

Wow! Nice! There was over 100 elephants. And there was very little baby elephant. They said it was only one week old. So cute!

Had the chance to see many elephants, which was great. However park pretty crowded in places, circling herds of elephants with their engines revving. Also did not see any other animals.